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Katrina took off her shoes so she could feel the sand on her bare feet. Dean had a lot of faults, but his ability to pick real estate wasn’t one of them. It only took her minutes to go from standing on the deck in their backyard to standing where the Pacific Ocean was touching her toes.
Katrina loved watching the waves break in the moonlight and tonight's nearly full moon made for excellent viewing. She also loved the feeling of being alone on the sand. During the day, such a thing was nearly impossible, even on the secluded beaches behind the house. They weren’t private but easy access unless you owned some property was non-existent.
This didn’t mean surfers and sun-worshippers looking for less-crowded sand and waves didn’t make the effort. With the sun long gone, however, she had the beach to herself or so she thought, until she noticed a shadow moving through the moonlight.
She told herself it was probably someone like her, someone who enjoyed listening to the waves crash in solitude. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d encountered another late-night beach walker. In the past, since both parties had been down here to be alone, they had ignored each other. There was, after all, miles of sand in either direction. This shadow, however, kept getting closer.
Because of her husband’s business, Katrina kept a gun in her purse, a Walther P22. Some would scoff at the stopping power of the twenty-two caliber round, but it was light and easy to shoot and she didn’t see anyone volunteering to be target practice. She reached in and wrapped her fingers around the handle with her right hand while she drew her phone with her left.
Katrina turned on the flashlight on her phone and lifted it towards the approaching shadow.
“Who’s there?” she asked.
The shadow didn’t answer.
As it came closer, the shadow became a tall, thin man. He looked to be easily over six and half feet tall.
“Hello?” Katrina said.
“Katrina, Katrina Stone,” he replied.
“Do I know you?”
The thin man said nothing. He lunged at her and had his hands on her throat before she could react. By the time she started fighting back, she was already pinned under him on the sand with his hands clamped tightly around her neck. She drew the gun, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger, but she had yet to chamber a round. She was in the process of doing so but she was too slow. With his hand around her neck and his body weight on her chest it was impossible for her to draw air into lungs. By the time she pulled back the slide, the lack of oxygen getting to her brain made everything go black.
Chapter 1
“What do you want, Ames?”
“It’s Detective Ames and I’m here to give you a chance to get ahead of this.”
“Get ahead of what?” Margot asked the two detectives standing at her door. It was still early and she was feeling the whiskey on ice she used to settle down after an eventful night.
“Can we come in?” Ames’s younger partner asked.
Margot didn’t know him, he must have joined the department after she left.
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“I don’t appreciate that kind of language, ma’am.”
Margot looked at Ames, “Is he fucking kidding?”
“No, on either count. I think this would be a conversation better had inside.”
“Yeah, well, no.”
“Do you have something to hide, Ms. Harris?” the younger detective asked.
Margot wasn’t going to answer that.
“We could have this conversation at the station in a nice interrogation room if you’d prefer,” Ames told her.
“Am I under arrest?” she asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Do you mind telling me what you think I did?”
